The Birth of the Balcony Kitchen Garden

After much umming and ahhing about the best use of our "outdoor space" (aka our eight foot by two foot sixth floor balcony), I finally took the first step towards a small-scale kitchen garden last weekend, buying us a few more herbs, a jalapeno plant and a little dwarf lemon tree. I say "kitchen garden" only because it's clearly not a veggie patch, but it's a wee bit more than a herb garden - I'm not being pretentious, honest!

Our purchases so far have been based around the items we love to buy fresh, but often find them to be expensive. Apart from the lemon tree of course, which is simply there because I've always wanted a lemon tree! Fresh herbs are really quite pricey over here in Perth, and we've not found fresh jalapenos once.

My aim at the moment is to take care of the needier plants (mint and coriander don't appear to appreciate the heat) before expanding a little bit more. I want to move into vegetables - perhaps a bucket of onions or garlic? However, we're not only constrained by the size of the balcony: we can't plant anything in a pot too heavy to be moved should we ever move out; Western Australia has strict quarantine rules regarding what can be planted (this affects garlic for instance, and we'd need to find someone who can sell us some for planting); our flat is high, facing directly into the evening winds (or natural air conditioning as we like to think of it!), so the plants need to be fairly resilient.

If you can't tell - I'm itching for a little plot of land of my very own. Liam and I can spend hours discussing the layout of our future veggie patch! But until then, I'm really keen to make the most of the tiny stretch of outdoor space that I've got.